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Summary

Live coverage of Super Bowl III, the football championship game between the New York Jets and the Baltimore Colts from the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida. Hosted by Curt Gowdy, the half-hour pre-game show includes a discussion of how both teams got to Super Bowl III, why the Colts are favored, and what the Jets must do to win the game. Highlights of this segment include the following: Kyle Rote and Pat Summerall interview Colt and Jet players; Al De Rogatis offers commentary; various Jet and Colt players comment on personnel connections between the two rival teams; and Gowdy compares the teams' lineups.

Highlights of game coverage include the following: in a garish on-field ceremony, a brass band strikes up "Mr. Touchdown USA" while people in enormous football-shaped costumes stride out of a gargantuan cake topped by smoke-swathed representatives of the Jets and Colts; the Apollo 8 astronauts lead the crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance; trumpeter Lloyd Geisler of the Washington National Symphony Orchestra plays "The Star-Spangled Banner"; Rote and De Rogatis analyze the Jets and Colts, respectively; the Colts kick off to the Jets; Colt kicker Lou Michaels misses a field goal; the first quarter ends with no score; Matt Snell runs for a touchdown, capping an eighty-yard drive to give the Jets a 7-0 lead; Michaels and Jim Turner trade missed field goals; and the first half ends, with New York maintaining its seven-point lead.

Highlights of the halftime festivities include the following: the halftime show, "America Thanks," features marching bands, "the largest cornucopia ever constructed," floats representing assorted American icons, and groups of costumed performers symbolizing the various freedoms; and sideline reporter Jim Simpson talks with comedian Bob Hope, who remarks that he "just flew down with (Spiro) Ted Agnew."

Subsequent game highlights include the following: on the first play of the second half, the Jets recover a Baltimore fumble; Jim Turner converts the opportunity into three points with a field goal, putting New York up 10-0; another Turner kick extends the lead to 13-0; aging legend John Unitas replaces ineffective Earl Morrall at quarterback for Baltimore; the third quarter ends and the fourth quarter begins; Turner's third field goal of the game makes it 16-0 Jets; Baltimore's Jerry Hill rushes for a touchdown to cut the Jet lead to 16-7; and a late Colt rally fizzles, giving the Jets a 16-7 victory. Includes commercials and promos.

(There are intermittent video disturbances throughout this program; this represents the best copy currently available to the Paley Center.)